Sparsica
by Brass Mama
Summary: Tony's life was just starting to get back to normal when this happened. Strange crimes scenes and disturbing deaths lead him to New York and an encounter with UNIT and Torchwood. Rated for future scenes.
1. Chapter 1

Sparsica

**NOTE: This is set in Helen Pattskyn's Torchwood AU. This is a NCIS/SVU/BloodTies/Torchwood crossover. **

AN: Okay, this story all started with a small idea, two people literally run into each other after not seeing each other for over a month. Then I thought, hey, Tony worked in Baltimore at the same time as Munch from SVU, why not make it a crossover. Then, I decided, if Ziva is there, I must involve either Torchwood or UNIT. And now it's snowballed to the point that its using baddie I wanted to set aside until a little later with my AU TW1 ficts, but no, the muses must have what they want. This is set after Phoenix, which I'm almost done with BTW, but this one wants written.

Quick note about the Title: Sparsica is a bit of a play on Sparsee, which if you've read Twelve Month or a couple of Helen's other ficts, is the common language that people, people being a relative term here, speak from Jack's time. Kind of like English and Chinese. It will make sense a little later.

* * *

_**Hell and Destruction are never full;**_

_**So the eyes of men are never satisfied.**_

- Proverbs 27:20

April 1, 2010

Tony had come into work today prepared for anything… except this.

He wasn't sure what was now splattered on his face, but it tasted like banana. Tony had opened his locker to grab his badge and gun, and as soon as the door was open wide, he heard a rubber band snap and suddenly his face had been covered with… whatever this shit was that now dripped of his freshly shaved face. Then he heard John start snickering.

Detective John _freaking _Buckley was a jokester for the ages. He'd done everything from prank call one of the newer detectives to fill Captain 'Taffy' Pankraz's office with Hannah Montana balloons. Sure, Tony had been THE joker at NCIS, but he never had done anything that bad. _Okay, so he super glued McGee's face to his desk that one time… but the skin grew back._

Now, Tony saw his own faults in his younger partner. Well, really, he didn't see much of anything, just the mushy, yellow-ish goop that felt cold as it dripped onto his chest.

_Oh, he is so dead. So horribly beyond dead. He was… _Tony's thought was shoved a side when Taffy opened the door to the locker room, shouting, "Dinozzo! Buckley! Get your asses out to the warehouse district. You just…" Taffy's deep voice came to a stop for a moment, "Tony, what in God's name is on your face?" he sound ready to burst into laughter.

"Don't know, Taffy. Ask Mr. Giggles over there. This stuff tastes like fake banana." Tony started wiping the goo onto the shirt he'd been changing out of.

"Well, Buckley, what the hell is that?" Taffy had started chuckling.

John was laughing too hard to answer, so Taffy just shook his head and left. "You **two** get cleaned up and to the scene quick."

"Boss," John shouted after him, "What do you mean you tw…" His question was cut off as Tony's now pudding covered shirt plastered itself across his face. "Oh."

* * *

When Tony and John finally arrived on the scene, they both took back any statements they'd made about being prepared for anything. As the uniform working the scene had informed them, a garbage disposal truck had stopped to empty the dumpster, but the co-pilot of the trasher had seen the body when he was putting a bag back in the bin.

It was a young man, maybe twenty-five at the oldest, African American and very, very pale. The victim's was blotchy and the ME on scene soon confirmed Tony's suspicions. The victim had suffered blood loss, a lot of blood loss, and judging by what Tony knew were wounds from an embalming needle, he'd been drained almost completely. But those wounds were post mortem, the cause of death was a big gaping puncture wound in his chest, ragged and almost cross shaped.

"So much for April Fools…" John grimaced, walking away, feeling his gut start to churn.

Since the scene was obviously a body dump, John and Tony recruited a couple of the veteran uniforms to help them search the area and track down the owners of nearby warehouses to attain permission to search them or a warrant if they really needed it.

That was another thing Tony missed about NCIS. Agent Lee had been really good at getting warrants. If Tony had needed a warrant for any reason, Lee could go and get it, at least until she'd moved over to the FBI so she'd have more time to take care of her sister. Apparently, Fornell was a decent person to work for. Baltimore PD still got warrants, just no one was really all that great at it and you had to have an actual reason for it.

After searching all day and turning up nothing, Tony headed back to the main building while John went to the autopsy. Hopefully, the medical examiner would turn up something to point them in some direction. This killing was sickening, and anyone who would do this to another human being… Tony shook his head as he set his stuff down at his desk. He picked up his phone and dialed a number he'd memorized after his last trip out of the country.

Tony heard the phone ringing, but no one picked up for a while and it went to voice mail, when the lively voice of Abby Sciuto filled the receiver. "Shwmae, chyraeddasoch Abby's ffôn. I'm sorry I'm not here to get your call, but that doesn't mean it isn't im…" Abby picked up the phone "Hey, Tony! How's my favorite Baltimore Detective?"

"I'm okay Abby. Glad to her I'm your favorite, just have to make sure you don't meet my partner. How's pre-motherhood?"

"Its okay. Please tell me you have something interesting? Jack's got me on light duty, which wouldn't be too bad if it wasn't so boring around here lately."

"Maybe you shouldn't jinx it, Abby? I just wanted you to look at an autopsy report from a murder. It's a bit hinky. Pretty sure you at least know whose territory its is."

"Ooh! You always know what I need, don't you? Well, what I really need is some coffee, but that's off limits." she paused, changing the subject, "So, what's so interesting about this case?"

"We found a body in a dumpster this morning. African American, probably college age. Blood almost completely drained and it was a body dump. Looks like who ever the killer is used an embalming machine to pump the blood out after they killed him."

"I'd say vampire, but they don't need an embalming machine to drink blood."

"Abby, I don't know whether or not to take you seriously anymore. Please tell me you're kidding." Tony wished for the days that he didn't have to distinguish myth and conspiracies from fact and truth. Now he felt like Scully listening to Mulder's not-so-insane theories.

"About vampires not using a embalming machine, pretty likely they don't. Though, Jack does know a vampire who lives in Toronto. Well, I guess live isn't really the right word. Resides there? Whatever. I just got your crime scene photos and the autopsy report."

"Did you just hack my computer while I was sitting here talking to you?"

"And the ME's office. I won't tell if you don't. By the Way…" Tony looked up see John walking into the bull pen.

"Uh, sorry Abby, I've got to go. Can you tell me later?"

Abby scowled. "I guess."

"Nice talking to you Abby, bye."

* * *

April 19, 2010

The mysteriously drained body had gone cold. None of their leads had panned out, and the victim had gone unidentified. John and Tony had moved onto other cases, and had all but forgot the creepy April's Fools killing. Then the got a call from the crime lab. Newt had caught a body a few days ago that had also been drained of blood. The original thought had been that the finger drawing on the floor, a set of bat-like wings with some strange writing in the left wing, had been painted in the victim's blood, but when the lab had run the DNA, it had come back to their April's Fools John Doe. Just like before, none of the trace was leading anywhere and no one seemed to know anything about it.

The victim, a thirty-year-old woman that had been identified as Sarah Callus, had been found in the foyer of an abandoned house on the outskirts of Baltimore's suburbs. She'd been drained, much the same way as John Doe, only she had a irregular stab wound in her abdomen. It had three distinct blades and left a cross-like wound. The ME had determined that it was a single weapon, and the lab technicians were working on a rendering of it.

"This is creepy." John said, holding a crime scene photo under a magnifying glass to examine the writing on one of the wings. "Anyone know what language this is?"

Newt shook his head. "Nope, but the DNA tech, Nakumara, he said it looks a bit like Japanese or another Asian writing, but the format of the lettering is all wrong. Made a joke about some sci-fi show that used Mandarin as part of their futuristic language."

"Well, this is no joke." John commented, trying to copy the lettering in the blood perfectly on to a piece of paper. Tony nodded.

"So we got nothing except for two bodies and a disturbing crime scene?"

"Yeah, that about sums it up." John tossed the photo back onto the pile Newt had brought over for them to see. "Think it's a serial killer." Both Newt and John looked at Tony.

"What? It's not like I ever investigated a _real _serial case." Tony was trying really hard to be modest, for once.

"Really? What about the one with the appetite for toes? Or the one that was posting videos on the internet of the murders?"

"The toe thing was the FBI's and would you consider a guy ripping off Seven a serial killer?"

John and Newt shared a look.

"Fine, so I may worked more 'serial' cases but it's not like I'm some sort of expert."

John scoffed. "Like I've had any experience in the matter."

Tony shook his head and opened up his laptop, pulling up his email to see if Abby had ever gotten back to him about the original murder. Only one small email, with an email address, a name, and a short message,

_Vicki Nelson._ _She's a Private Investigator in Toronto. She specializes in the occult. You should meet her partner._

_3 Abby : )_

_Definitely an Abby way to sign an email. _Tony smirked to himself.

"Anything good from your friend?" John tried to read the email over Tony's shoulder.

"Don't know, yet. She's passing me off to an occult specialist in Canada."

John seemed to find this amusing, "Got to love Canadians. Love to go up their for the holidays."

Newt and Tony gave John a look.

"My mom's side of the family is Canadian. Double Citizenship."

"Whatever. It's late I'll call her tomorrow."

* * *

AN: How's that for a start? This is sort of a set up to a story I've been playing with for a while and it started not that big of a story and just kind of snowballed into, yeah. This will be crossing over with Torchwood and L&O: SVU, and just a little bit with Blood Ties. Please let me know what you think. Bye. Happy Holidays!

XS


	2. Chapter 2

Sparsica

_Battle not with monsters  
lest ye become a monster  
and if you gaze into the abyss  
the abyss gazes into you._

Friedrich Nietzsche

AN: Sorry this took so long, finals were last week and I just could get to my point quite quick enough. (I mean this is three and a half page long, that's a lot of writing!)** Added: Holy Crap! Over 3000 Words! Damn I'm good.**

This chapter crosses over to Blood Ties. And Law and Order SVU, just a little at the end.

This is when the strang_**er**_ stuff starts happening. That is, if things can get stranger than bodies drained of their blood and psychotic finger paintings on the floor. Though, if Torchwood gets involved in anything, it's automatically stranger.

Um, what else… Oh, this is my first time writing for Blood Ties, and I haven't seen all the episodes quite yet, but I've seen most of them. So, be a tad kind.

Thanks to every one who favorited, story alerted, or author alerted after reading chapter one and thanks to anyone who reads this. ENJOY!

April 20, 2010

Toronto, Canada

Coreen Fennel was used to the weirdness of her job. She was more than used to it, she loved it. Well, aside from the demons that attacked people and the couple times that person was her. She had a scar on her chest from when a demon ripped out her heart. It wasn't pretty.

Today was relatively normal. Boring normal, not fun normal. Fun normal was ghosts or maybe…The phone rang.

"Nelson Investigations. No case too weird. I'm Coreen, how can I help you?"

The voice on the other end was obviously American. "Hi, I'm Detective Anthony DiNozzo from Baltimore. A friend of mine referred me to a Vicki Nelson. I'm gonna guess she's your boss, and your her... partner?"

"Oh, no. I'm more like an assistant slash receptionist. She's not in yet, but I can get you're case and have her call you back, if that's okay, Detective."

"Yeah, that should be fine, and please, Tony."

"Okay, Tony." She paused for a moment. "Why did your friend tell you to call us? We're in Canada."

"She said that you deal with a different type of hinky. Her type of hinky apparent doesn't include bodies drained of their blood, but she parties in grave yards."

Coreen smiled. "Sounds fun, maybe I know her."

"Abby Sciuto. She said that her boss new someone from around there."

"Oh, Abby. We met over the phone a while back. Vicki went over there to help out…" she wasn't sure she should say more, Torchwood supposedly being a secret and all.

"You don't have to tell me, I already know about what Abby does." The detective changed the subject. "I'm going to email some photos to you, just so you know they're pretty… disturbing."

" Oh, no problem, we get that all the time. I'll have Vicki call you when she gets here. Is that everything?"

"Uh, just one thing, was Abby serious… about the vampire?"

"Uh, hope to talk to you soon, Tony." She emphasized his name and hung up the phone.

---------

A little while later, Vicki Nelson, Warrior Princess, got in, looking in need of a strong cup of coffee after tracking down… whatever it was that she and Henry had tracked to the bad side of town last night that had also dented the door panel of her car.

"Any calls?"

"Just a detective." Coreen smiled to herself.

"Was it Mike asking about the street of torn up cars and why I missed our date last night?" Vicki half expected to hear from her former partner before the hour was over.

"Actually, no. But, I want to hear about it later." Coreen gave her boss a quick look that was really little more than ensuring she'd hear about her night with Henry, and after Vicki wearily nodded Coreen continued, "A Baltimore detective named Tony DiNozzo called. He knows Abby. And Jack." Coreen's emphasis on Tony's name told Vicki he had been in some way charming, which meant that he was most likely, in some way, annoying as hell.

"What did Detective DiNozzo want with us?" Vicki took off her coat and moved toward the comfy sofa in her office.

"Tony sent up some crime scene photo's that Abby thought we might be able to help with."

"Is Tony going to pay for our services?" Vicki asked giving her assistant a look. Business had hit a slow point after a bit of a heightened stretch from the weird thing that had happened back in September with the kids chanting 'We are coming.' A dozen concerned parent had come to her to look into their possessed children, haunted kids, and such, none of which had been the case, but she'd been making more than decent money there for awhile. Things had leveled off in February and now she was back to the crazies of Toronto.

"I told him I'd have you call back after you looked at the photos." Coreen smiled, opening up the email and hitting print as she opened the photos before going back to filling out the reports that had amassed. "Those are the crime scene photos he sent."

Vicki picked up the first photo, of a woman who had been stabbed and laid on top of a creepy blood painting of wings. First thing she noticed was the symbols above the left wing, they didn't look like anything she'd seen before, not that she'd seen everything, just a lot.

"Coreen," she got her Gothic assistant's' attention, "Do you recognized these?" she handed over the print out, pointing at them.

"No, I'll look into it though. Maybe Henry'll recognize them." Coreen shuffled off to look through the small library of demon, magic, dark arts, etc. books.

The phone rang and Vicki walked arong Coreen's desk, picking the phone up, "Vicki Nelson." She listened to the irritated detective on the other end. "Good Morning to you too, Mike. Yeah, I'm really sorry about last night, something came up." She paused as Mike told her the reason for hiis call, "Cars? What cars? Oh, those cars..."

-----------

Baltimore

John Buckley yawned as he mindlessly flipped through the full DNA report from the latest victim and crime scene. Not a ton of it made much sense to him. He'd never learned the techno-what-its and even the dummed down report was hard for him to follow. He wasn't stupid, this level of science just didn't compute. John was great with numbers. Monomials, quadratics, calculus, trigonometry, piece of cake. Chemical Compounds and mito-what-its were lost on him.

Numbers were solid, they didn't change. They didn't kill each other. They didn't care about laws. They didn't change with the world as you knew it in half a second of rage. Numbers couldn't suddenly turn around and leave you hanging. Numbers were a solid wall of reality that were hard as diamonds to break through.

"John, that P.I. is going to get back to me." Tony said, as he walked up to where John had been waiting by the vending machines.

"Good. DNA lab sent over the full report." He handed his partner the thick pile of printouts. Tony immediately started looking through them, hoping something would make some sense.

"You finish looking through the victim's history?" he asked, still scanning pages.

"Yep, Sarah Callus. A study is back stabbing. Her boyfriend in high school went to jail for statutory after he dumped her for someone his own age. In college, she got a professor suspended for lewd conduct, suspiciously soon after she got an F on a major paper. More recently, her former employer, at a fast food joint in Jersey, was shut down about three weeks after she got fired. Funky that she was laying on wings, she was no angel. Anyways, she was reported missing by her lawyer when she didn't show up to a deposition and wasn't at her house. That was three days before her body was found."

"But she'd only been dead for a day when she was found." Tony looked up from the reports. That sank in for a moment. "Oh, god." he felt his gut twist. "Could they tell when her blood was drained?"

John caught on. "Not yet, the doc is looking into it. You don't think..."

Tony just swallowed and took a deep breath. No matter how many aliens showed up, people were still the monsters that would keep him up at night. "Is there anything else?"

"Not really. Just that she didn't have any close family." John coughed, shoving the thought on the victim's COD away from him, thinking of a tricky quadratic problem to focus on.

Tony just nodded and went back to the report, which was almost entire flipped through. He suddenly paused half way down a page. "Shit." he muttered.

"What?" John mentally set aside the trigonometry equation he'd been running through.

"There's three different blood donors who are in this packet."

"John Doe, Sarah Callus, and..."

"The crazy bitch whose thinks these finger paintings are fun and games."

"Bitch? The killers a woman?"  
"Yeah, XX. Abby would be so proud." Tony gave John a halfhearted smirk.

-----

April 21, 2010

Toronto, Canada

It was just after midnight, and Coreen sat surround by all the books of ancient languages she could find in the small library she had allotted and Henry was going to be over soon with a few of his collection. The symbols were the ones that Detective Tony DiNozzo had sent them, and they weren't fitting anywhere. They looked Asian, but the formatting was more Egyptian, except that Egyptians had written in pictures, and these were dashes and curves. "What do you mean?" she closed what had to be the tenth book she'd skimmed through.

"Maybe these will help." Henry Fitzroy set a stack of five or seven books next to Coreen. She would have jumped if she weren't so tired.

"Hello, Henry. Let's see what you got?" she reached for the top book and started paging through while the vampire picked up the black and white print out of the dead woman lying on top on a pair of wings.

"Where did this happen?" he asked, sitting down in the chair opposite of the Goth's desk, intently studying the symbols painted above one wing.

Coreen finished looking down a page and looked up, "Baltimore. Abby referred a detective up here after a bled out body was found." She yawned, rubbing at her eyes, smudging her mascara a little more. "Apparently, someone pumped out a man dry of blood and then painted those wings on the floor of an abandoned house in it, and then killed her, drained her blood, and posed the body. I just wish I could find where these symbols came from. They look like an Asian language, but the format..."

"...looks Egyptian." Henry finished. "It looks familiar, but I'm not quite sure where I've seen it before." He grabbed another one of his books and joined Coreen in her cram session. "Where's Vicki?"

"Out. Probably with Mike." she answered carefully. She understood that Henry felt for Vicki and had almost left after she chose Mike over him. "Who were you with when I called earlier?"

"Just a quick bite." Henry looked up at her, giving her his usual smile. "It was nice. Nancy is a very sweet woman."

Noise came from the hallway outside the office. Both Henry and Coreen's heads flicked up. Shortly after, Vicki and Detective Mike Celuci came into the office.

"It's not my fault. I didn't throw fire at a street full of cars." Vicki scowled at Mike.

"Yeah, and you had nothing to do with it either? It's not like you've never been around when other weird stuff happened, right?" The comments earned Mike a punch in the arm.

"At least you aren't going to catch any more incinerated bodies." she look from Henry to Coreen. "Hi, guys. Did I miss the invite for a party?"

"No, just trying to find those symbols Detective DiNozzo had at his crime scene. But, this creep-o doesn't like coloring in the lines." Coreen moaned, smudging even more of her make up.

"Whose Detective DiNozzo?" Mike asked, mildly suspicious, or maybe just curious using suspicious as a cover.

"A client. He wants us to look at a pair of murders that happened in Baltimore." Vicki said.

"Can I look?" Mike asked, looking at Henry. "Hello, Fitzroy."

"Detective Celuci." Henry nodded back, curtly.

"Uh, sure, Mike. You can take a look." Vicki took one of the photos from Coreen and handed it over to Mike. "Scary right."

"Up there with Norman and Associates." Mike deadpanned, looking directly at Henry while Coreen shifted uncomfortably, knocking a few books over.

Henry stared right back, turning his head slightly, They just looked at each other for a few more moments before Vicki looked between them, clearly not taking their macho crap, "Seriously guys? It's bad enough I have to fight flaming... whatevers and come back to my office to deal with you two."

"I think I found something, but it doesn't really help." Coreen was holding on of the books that had fallen off the desk. "It's a tattoo. It was on a woman in London, Catherine Eddowes."

"Who?" Vicki and Mike asked at about the same time.

"Fourth victim of Jack the Ripper." Henry supplied, taking the book from Coreen to look at the sketch in the small book. The symbols were similar to the ones painted above the wing, but not quite the same.

"Well, does it say what it means?" Vicki asked, looking over Henry's shoulder to see the sketch.

"No, just that it was deemed irrelevant during the investigation." Coreen put the rest of the books she'd knocked over on the desk and sagged against the wall. "I wish I could just find these symbols."

Vicki gave her assistant a weak smile, "Why don't you go home, you've been looking since you got back from lunch."

"I guess I am tired," Coreen rubbed at her eyes, willing them to stay open, only achieving to smear any make up that had been left intact across her face.

"I'll walk with you." Henry grabbed Coreen's coat and helped her into it, ever the gentlemen. "See you soon, Vicki."

Vicki nodded as Henry and Coreen left, then looked at the sketch some more. "Looks like we've at least got something to send to him. Not sure it'll help, but..."

"Something is better than nothing." Mike finished for her, "Yeah, but knowing the same text was somehow involved with Jack the Ripper, not exactly going to help."

-----

Baltimore

April 22, 2010

"So, we've got a creepy finger painting, two victim's drained of blood, messages written in a language no one knows that somehow was also on the body of a women that Jack the Ripper killed, and we know that killer's probably a woman." Tony and John were sitting around, talking the case out, Ode de Campfire style, though Tony had learned his lesson years ago not to use a recorder.

"You know, Jack the Ripper painted a message in blood after killing one of his victims. I could look up which one that was." John jotted down a note to look up Jack the Ripper's Wikipedia page. "There might be something symbolic about how the victim was posed, on top of a set of wings?"

"She definitely was no angel, but how are she and John Doe related? Ms. Nelson said that she and her colleagues would keep looking into the Jack the Ripper thing to see if they can fine any more recurrences of the symbols in history." Tony put his feet up on his desk, leaning back in his chair.

"You don't really think that this has to do with the _paranormal?_" John waved his hands around to show how much he believed in the paranormal. As much as a seventh grader believes in the tooth fairy, it seemed. "I'm mean, come on. We've got aliens, why do we have to deal with demons, too?"

Tony gave John a knowing smile, "Oh, if only I could tell you what I saw in Cardiff."

"Why can't you?"

Tony thought for a moment. He'd never signed a confidentiality agreement or anything. It's not like he was under any legal compulsion to stay quiet, but Jack hadn't seemed like the kind of man, bisexual or not, to let someone endangered his employees and their operation. It just seemed better to leave out those details until he knew John a bit better. After all, they'd only met two months ago and it didn't seem like that was long enough to trust someone enough to tell them that you'd seen a **real live** dinosaur in a Batman like base, in Cardiff, Wales, ran under the guise of a tourist shop. Who'd actually believe that?

Instead of answering, Tony just gave him the usually bullshit you give people when you'd rather not discuss something work related, "Classified."

John said as much about his answer, with a bit more profanity than should be acceptable for a Major Case detective.

That's when Tony's phone rang. "Detective DiNozzo, Baltimore Major Case."

"Hi, DiNozzo." Came a voice Tony remembered from over a decade ago. "It's Detective Munch, calling for Special Victim's Unit. You may want to get up here."

"Why?" Tony checked his watch. 8:26 _Damn, it's early._

"We've got a body up here that matches one of your cases." Munch said solemnly. "How soon can you be here?"

"A few hours." Tony jotted down the address of the crime scene. "See you soon, Munch."

"New body? Where?" John stood up to grab a copy of the case file and hand it to Tony.

"New York."

_**tbc...**_  
-------

I plead creative license with the Jack the Ripper thing. I had to set up something for a later story, and my muses like yanking me around apparently. Now that that's set up, I can move on. I really hope to get more chapters out soon. Please Review.  
For anyone who doesn't know who Norman was, he was an evil super-geek who tried to force Coreen to be his girlfriend by summoning a demon and killing her boyfriend. He came back again later and tried to kill, well, everyone. He was really creepy.

XERO


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Uh, I'd like to apologize for a bit of a reach I had to make do to some scatterbrained-ness. I forgot that SVU first aired in '99, not 2000, and didn't think about that when I was working on Phoenix (which I swear is going to get some attention soon). So I'm going to just say that Munch left the department at about the same time as Tony and moved to New York and join SVU. Heh, very "small" reach.

Also, for anyone who did see my message about taking leave from , I was thinking for a little there that I would be able to keep writing, but thing have a funny way of grabbing your muses and changing your views. I did upload a story, but that was pretty much already written before I put up the hiatus message. I was trying so hard to write and work on some of my stuff, but nothing was fitting together. Then two thing happened. I had my girlfriend tell me that writing was one of best talents for one. She told me that I should keep writing because its what I talk about, what I get frustrated about. The other thing was that I went back and reread the chapter 'Crossroads' of Helen Pattskyn's short stories and it reminded me where this far out plot was going, what it was supposed to be putting into motion, that Maureen was originally named Noreen (unless I just am making an ass out of myself by **ass**uming that their supposed to be the same and actually have nothing to do with each other). But anyways, I just want to thank every one who reads any of my fanficts, reviews them or story alerts them. Any who (I say that way too much) on with chapter three of …

Sparsica

Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.

~Erik Pepke

-----

New York, New York

April 22, 2010

It took Tony about half an hour to fill in Taffy and wait while he and the Captain of the Special Victim's Unit touched bases and decided that Tony should head up to New York to assist in the investigation. Of course, all of it was just red tape. Tony knew that he was heading to New York as soon as he heard that there was a body there. His partner tried to get Taffy to let him go, but the aging Captain of major case decided that John would just have to stay in Baltimore, reasoning that 1.) Tony knew Munch and would be better prepared to deal with him, as annoying as he could get, 2.) Detective Nunez's partner was out on maternity leave and could use a hand with his cases for the time being, and 3) Tony, though he may not have been at Baltimore as long as John, had more experience dealing with other departments, and, no doubt, eventually the damn Feds, were going to get their pompous fingers into this bloody meat pie. Of course, John thought that he should have gone with Tony, but just accepted Taffy's ruling and shuffled off to see where he was needed.

Taffy had little respect for the Feds beyond giving them his cooperation when they were in town, and not saying as much to their faces. He knew that bureaucracy was really worth shit, but he played the game to benefit the detectives that worked for him. In Taffy's opinion, the Feds just took over investigations with little to no regard for local interests or investments in the case. He could forgive Tony for working for a federal agency only because NCIS, on a whole, was not as big toed and inconsiderate as their FBI counterparts, though he'd also liked Gibbs when they'd met all those years ago.

Tony took they files with him to his car and headed toward New York.

An accident on a major road into the Big Apple delayed him, but Tony finally got to the crime scene about four hours after he'd left Baltimore. It had already been processed and the body removed from the alley that had been cordoned off with yellow police tape. The only people hanging around the crime scene were a few looky-loos, a couple uniforms sitting in their car, and a grey-haired man in a cheap looking suit. Detective John Munch. Okay, so maybe he was a sergeant, but Tony didn't think it really fit his former colleague. Sergeant had more of a military connotation than fitted the conspiracy theorist, who wasn't anti-government so much as anti-"sneaking around behind the public's back" and he probably had a field day after the weird stuff that had happened last September.

"Hello, Munch." Tony walked up to the police tape, but didn't cross, stopping to look at the scene first. The painting, on the far end of the alley, showed the profile of a wolf, teeth bared, with symbols smeared along the back edge of the art, if you could call something painted in blood art, but if taken out of context, the painting was actually quite finely painted.

"DiNozzo. Heard you finally quit NCIS. Nice choice." Munch lifted the tape and Tony ducked under following Munch to a pool of blood near the da Vinci Code like painting. "Victim was here, two wounds, one in his chest, bled out from there, and then was castrated."

Tony pulled a disgusted look, ducking under the tape and walking over to look at the mural. "Munch, only you could stand there, with a straight face, and talk about a missing pair like a lost dog."

"You'd be surprised how often it happens. One of the first cases after I came up to New York, a cabbie was found minus his cigar."

Tony unconsciously moved to protect the family jewels. "Let's move on then, Munch."

"CSU is still processing blood samples and trace evidence, but it doesn't look like anything that will lead us anywhere. What evidence did you and yours collect?"

Tony took a moment to answer, for rather obviously male reasons, "Female DNA in the mural. Some of the lab techs are still trying to make a rendering or something of the blade, so far it's just that it has both secondary and thirdary blades. First victim was found in a dumpster about twenty miles away from the abandoned house the second victim and he's still a John Doe. If I had to put money on it, I'd guess this blood is from the second victim."

"Hm. You mean tertiary right?"

"Huh?"

"Thirdary isn't a word. Tertiary is."

"Whatever." Tony gave Munch a look of joking annoyance. He and Munch had never really liked each other, Tony was too much of a playboy type for the detective who had as many ex-wives as Gibbs, or maybe he had more now?

Before he could inquire on whether or not there had been another Mrs. Munch, an African American with his haired pulled back and wearing a leather jacket ducked under the tape and walk toward Tony and Munch.

"Who's this?" the man asked Munch, looking Tony up and down.

"Detective Tony DiNozzo, Baltimore PD and goof-ball, this Detective Fin Tutuola. Visa-versa. I was just telling him in so many words that we have nothing."

"Yet. This perp seems a little too psycho to make zero mistakes." Tutuola sneered.

"Well, she did spill some of her own blood at the last crime scene." Tony put his hands in his pockets. "I think I should probably head to see your captain..."

"Captain Cragen." Munch supplied.

"Yeah, might as well touch bases with him before I do any running around looking for stuff. Plus I've got to update a consultant I was getting touch with."

Munch gave Tony a look, "A consultant. What kind, a psychic?" he slathered on the cynicism.

"No, Munch, just someone who knows weird like I know murder. Besides, she's Canadian."

"Oh, and that makes everything all better. We still beat their hockey team in the Olympics." Munch started walking toward his car.

Tony rolled his eyes, heading for his own vehicle.

-----

The SVU bullpen was a lot nicer than it looked. The upstairs area with the couches was actually more than a little comfortable. Tony supposed that it was for the best considering what kind of victims came through the lounge everyday. Tony set his day bag up there and headed back down to meet with Captain Cragen, who was waiting in his office with the other two detectives attached to SVU. They did the whole who's-who-thing that preceded any sharing of information, though Tony knew more about the case than they did at this point, so most of the information was going one way.

"So she killed a guy in Baltimore, drained his blood, painted a set of wings with it, killed a woman, and painted a wolf in her blood in New York then killed a dude and cut off his cigar? Why?" Detective Eliot Stabler asked from where he was leaning next to the coffee maker. Elliot wasn't a big guy, but judging by how he stood, well leaned at the moment, he could break any prick in half, easy. That intimidating aura reminded Tony a bit of Gibbs. Stabler was definitely military and Tony would put his money on Marine.

"To get attention would be my guess." Tony shrugged a little.

"She's maybe getting revenge against people who hurt her." Detective Olivia Benson put in. "Did you find anything in common between the first and second victim?"

Olivia was a gorgeous woman, in Tony's humble woman, with both inner and outer strength that seemed to make the room pulse a little bit with determination. No one was going to easily stop her from doing her job and no Baltimore detective would have a chance at flirting with her.

"Couldn't, the first victim didn't give us even his name and made my partner lose his breakfast." Tony flipped absentmindedly through the file he'd all ready looked through two dozen times and thought of something Miss Nelson had said. "What do you think of when you think of Egypt?"

Stabler scrunched up his eyebrows and looked at Tony like it was the most off the wall statement he'd ever heard, which it probably was up there. "Why?"

"Just something my consultant said about the symbols, that the format apparently looks Egyptian, but the symbols resemble more along the lines of an Asian language. When I think of Egypt I always think of mummies and ancient rituals. Well that and the Mummy movies, but that's beside the point. What if she's a crazy and the point is paintings. If only we could get a translation of the symbols, if they mean anything at all."

Munch walked up next to Tony and commented, "I think of grave robbers and mummies and death mostly, especially for the poor stupid bastards who actually try. And I think of this insane theory that the pyrimids where landing spots for extra-terrestrials. Imagine that!"

_At least there's somethings that aren't seen as possible by Munch. _Tony rubbed at his skull, "Maybe it's too much of a reach, but I keep thinking that it's got to do with what these symbols mean. I just..."

The phone behind him rang, making him jump just a little. Munch reached back and picked up. After swapping curt greetings and information. "Thanks." Munch hung up, "Autopsy is done on the victim. Want to come Tony?"

"Sure, it can't be worse than the last autopsy I went to." Tony shrugged and followed Munch.

-------

A/N: That's where I decided to split the chapter, because it was getting really long. Anyways, please review, Thnx! Cookies for you.

~Xero


End file.
